Dumping Day

Pop Quiz: Do you the meaning of Dumping Day?'
Throughout much of Nova Scotia, it refers to the day lobster traps are 'dumped' into the water in a race to get to the most coveted locales across fishing grounds. That event occurred yesterday, in fishing ports in Areas 33 and 34:

all the way from Digby around to Cole Harbour, near Halifax.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada had delayed the start by 24 hours because high winds would have made it dangerous for thousands of boats to leave port with high deck loads of traps.

"Lest We Forget"

Remembrance Day, 2012

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
-- From Laurence Binyon's poem, For the Fallen

The Detective Sidekick

We both read a lot of mysteries around here, and devour the stories of many mysteries on television.

You know the plot: detective -- police or 'private eye' -- looks at the event, gathers and studies the evidence and solves the crime.
But, I ask you, Dear Reader, Where would we be without the'sidekick'?
I present three here, and others will follow.
Of course, we begin with Dr. John Watson, who wrote about the exploits of Sherlock Holmes.

Fall Colours

There are many great rewards from living in Nova Scotia: you were always within “smelling distance” of salty or fresh water, you can choose without penalty to follow a slower pace of life, and you have those beautiful Fall Colours all around you.

The Cabot Trail in Northern Cape Breton is legendary around the world for showing spectacular colours at this time of year; friends have assured us that the vistas along the Trail were just as spectacular this year.
My wife and I have just returned from our “33rd Anniversary Tour” around Western Nova Scotia (Well, rock bands can name their tours, why can't we?),

THE Goal

It was the only goal that mattered.

As CBC News told the story this morning, "40 years after Paul Henderson's famous goal in Game 8 of the Summit Series, many still remember exactly where they were."
I can ... and I'll tell you later.
It was the perfect cap to a surprisingly hard 7-game hockey series, between the best from Canada and the best from the U-S-S-R.
The series had been a long time in the making.
For more years than Canadians wanted to remember,

New Homes for Old Books

Over the last few weeks at our house, the project has been “clean out the basement of extra stuff.”

You may think that it's a regular event with us, but I want to point out that we moved into our house SEVENTEEN years ago!
Since both of us are retired teachers, we got to amass a lot of teaching materials in our respective classrooms. Some of those are still good, but many were outdated, since today's students preferred to consult the Internet. Some of the boxes had “useful” items

Injustices

A number of incidents have been reported over the past few weeks which fall into the category of: How-could-this-have-happened, in-this-enlightened-age? Two occurred in the local area, while the other was international in scope.
-- A young man, who is visually impaired, was denied entry to a job-search facility, because he had a dog guide.

Here in Nova Scotia, legislation states that dog guides cannot be barred from any public area. The receptionist/clerk, employed by the "Y," was not convinced when this fact was pointed out to her, and she did not allow the prospective client to enter. In addition, he was not permitted to use the facility's job-search computer software. (Photo: http://www.labretriever.net)
-- Later that same week,